Friday, July 07, 2006

The Yah Mos - Off Your Parents

The Yah Mos Off Your Parents 7" (Recess, 1994)

For the longest time this Sacramento punk rock 'institution' were slagged off as a mere blue-collar low-rent take on the Nation of Ulysses' staggering genius, they being the DC band who married a sound similar to this with lots of expensive clothes and wowed a very narrow slice of a certain generation that shall go nameless (post-X, pre-Y, eh...). Well, no one outside the Beltway cares about NOU anymore so let's just freshen the take on this EP's achievements just on its face, shall we? All these tracks are bashing away with brainy, wreckless abandon, yet they are held together by a sinewy rhythm section that never allows the songs to fall apart into jerkoff/spazz/mess/hardcore. Channeling and controlling this seething energy (in other words, making it accessible) without sounding tight-assed or self-conscious or devolving into a prog-punk-core band (with its nice, safe, mathematically derived lego-piece song construction aesthetic) is very tuff I says. Previous SP post Cop Out managed it. The Yah-Mos do it on this EP.

This particular EP carries the odd distinction of being released on one label (Recess) and then getting reissued right afterwards on another (Moo-La-La), which usually means the first label has disappeared, which as we know with Recess is certainly not the case, alas. The covers of the two pressings are slightly different, so for those of you who 'collect 'em all!'... One of the overlooked punk LPs of the mid-late-90s is the Yah Mos' own effort, mainly because it took years and years for it to find eventual issuance via the Gern Blandsten label. Seek and enjoy. - Ryan W.

The posts on this site might have links to mp3s. These mp3s are posted for educational purposes, in hopes that you will track down this out of print music. We don't make any money here. We just love these records and want you to hear them. If you're an artist or label behind one of these recordings and you want a sample mp3 taken down, please contact us & we will take the files down. Audio files up for 1 week only so listen now. Please do not link or hotlink MP3s. Because of bandwidth issues, please download instead of stream.